nztrip

We departed from LAX to Fiji for 2 days then to New Zealand to meet with Garret arriving from Australia (another story) staying in New Zealand with Terre and Rick Aubrey at Dalrachney Station. All of us returning to LAX via Fiji.

On the flight I realized why the plane tickets were so cheap…the seats were very uncomfortable, once I finally got to sleep thanks to common sleeping medicine, I slept for around 5 hours when the stewardess woke me to tell me that the substance they are serving is breakfast. Needless to say eating it wasn’t a good way to wake up. Then I could not sleep again. Fiji is very hot and humid, and the air-conditioning in the terminal was not fully on, if they even were on at all! After three hours and waiting to get a boarding pass, I finally get on the plane and served another breakfast, which I believe were the leftovers from my flight before, because we boarded the same plane.

Once arriving in Sydney the temperature was much nicer, and the people much friendlier. I took the bus to Bondi Beach and had no idea what to do from there, because I could not get a hold of anybody. I walked all along Bondi, which is a pretty impressive beach city. It is similar to Pacific Beach but the main strip is parallel to the water, and the place much more active. Later that evening I was able to get in touch with Hanna’s (my cousin from New Zealand) flat mates. Three girls in a small apartment can’t beat that. The next day we have breakfast in Bondi, and decide to try out surfing. I rented a board for I think $8 hr US dollars. By noon we had had enough getting beat from the large waves. I decided to go into Sydney and figure out something to do.

Did the normal tourist thing of the Opera house, which unfortunately did not have anything that night. Walked around the harbor and across the bridge, I was going to climb it but did not feel like waiting 2 hours, then get physical, lectures then walk lasting 4 hours total. So I had some Thai which I think later did not agree with me. Back in Bondi I decided to make Mexican for the girls, because they don’t really have any. This did take 4 small grocery stores to buy everything, but I was able to make fajitas. The girls loved them, the mix wasn’t as good as you can get at home, but they were acceptable. As the night grew on my stomach started to feel a bit sick. I had to pass down a chance to see the nightlife, to pray to the porcelain gods. The next day was more difficult to wake up at 5am, to get a train ride 14hours up the coast to Brisbane.

The scenery was different than what I would expect, it was beet red and desert, and we drove up part of the coast. Everything was green, green valleys, rolling hills, tropical rainforest, and banana trees. And the sky was incredible; cue’s the entire way up the coast. Still on the verge of throwing up every half hour, it wasn’t a pleasant ride, and would have paid a fair amount of money to get on a plane back home.

In Brisbane at the train station, I meet up with Sunday and Hugh. We drove back to Hugh’s and ended up in bed pretty soon after. I woke up to the sound of exotic birds making some incredibly loud noises. Hugh and his dad fly gliders, and Hugh attended George’s course a while back. On the bus to Dalby, Sunay and I talked a lot about the difference in soaring conditions, and about the birds all of those exotic birds were wild flying around in their back yard.

Australia is a mixture of American and English. Everyone is very nice; it’s the Aussie way. They drive on the wrong side, and speak with a funny accent. Very commercialized like the US, Sunay was saying how he thought it was more American then he thought it would be. Whereas I found it more British than I thought it would be, but I was not thinking that it would be Americanized like it is.

Sunday the clouds were awesome, then the first day rolls around and the cues go away. Maren gave us the runaround of ‘our’ house. 3 bedrooms, dining room, living room, fully furnished. It was their old house, before they moved into their newly built house. Plain Soaring is a farm, converted airstrip, with 2 runways, hanger storing an incredibly immaculate Nimbus 4DM, fully loaded and assembled, slid in thought the doors sideways.

The Lee’s are the nicest people I have ever met. George is a very laid back guy, flying as much or as little as you want, and very easy to get along with. Maren is very sweet, pleasant to talk to, and a very good cook. Breakfast is 8am, after breakfast we do a weather report and figure out when to fly. We then meet at the glider at the appropriate time; I fill the tail tank, and uncover the tail surfaces. Sunay was assigned to getting the front sorted, cushions, parachutes, weight for my scrawny butt. We fly, one of us flies and the other listens to the radio, and reads. 1pm is lunch, after the flight we wash and store the glider, dinner at 630pm, then debrief discussing the day, conditions, using SeeYou and Fast, then its back to our house to sleep.

The flying is a blast, its great being back in summer again. The Nimbus handles like a dream. At first the glider was beating me; yaw string was cleaning the canopy quite well sweeping back and forth. The ailerons are very light, all the controls are easy. I am very grateful that I was able to get 7 hours with Claudio in the ASH. It did make life a little more predictable, but the Nimbus does handle different. After some local flying we head out on a 200K in the blue doing 76mph. The next day is an off day for me and Sunay’s day to get a beating. A 300k day is next at 83.7mph finding a beautiful street on the second leg, to pick up the speed. I think it was something like 7 thermals, but I can’t remember. Then the weather turns bad and has a day off from flying, doing ground instruction instead, but we finally get flying again with Sunay doing his first 500k, ending the flight with champagne at the house, customary at Plain Soaring. The next day I do my 500k at 77mph, which is quite incredible because we saved ourselves from 1700 feet or so. Maybe even lower but we hook a 12knt boomer to cloud base around 7-8000. It seemed that every cloud street I tried was the wrong one. Connecting the dots was not working like it should have. But it was a weakness that I have been working on since I got here. Yesterday I did a 350k, with lots of cu but not much streeting and not very high. I averaged 93mph, and did 9% thermalling on the whole task, you generally look for below 25% to be good. We assessed that given the relative low bases, conditions, limit of 100knts, glider weight, etc. I could not have gotten the glider to go much faster.

George gave us a huge stack or Sailplane and Gliding, Soaring and the Oz magazine, highlighting better articles. We also have a half dozen videos, soaring books, sports psychology books, coaching stuff, plus the Platypus Papers for a lighter reading. So as far as free time goes I have little. There are 6 TV stations, with more commercials that repeat than there is the regular show.

This IS Plain Soaring, you live soaring, and there is nothing else. Its awesome, the generosity of the Lee’s is incredible.

Love to all, Garret

Getting ready for a 3-week vacation makes the vacation more a necessity! Since our first leg of the trip included a 10-hour flight we kept long hours so we would be tired. Renee drove us to have Boyd's eyes examined pick up reading glasses for Karen and Shane then into LA for a short visit and dinner with Big Boyd. Off to LAX for the flight. We expected a longer wait, but it was not too bad getting through the checks.

Once the Air Pacific 747 launched we took a sleeping pill compliments of Big Boyd, put on
our eye covers and had the neck pillows in place, I woke to the smell of breakfast some 7 +
hours later.

Fiji customs went well as we were fairly early off the plane. We were greeted by our driver to our hotel. Fiji is about as different as can be from Warner Springs; it is lush green, full of birds. And the warm humid, humid air is different. We had breakfast by the pool (banana pancakes, tropical fruits, tropical fruit smoothies) and at 0930 were taken to our
adventure for the day.

We boarded a boat with about 10 other tourists and almost as many crew. After an hour we make it to a 6-acre Island and took a smaller boat over the reef to the beach. Shaded by trees and a small hut we enjoyed fantastic snorkeling on the reef, Boyd and I went twice, my sore muscles would be a reminder of the beauty. Boyd tried his hand at fishing but nothing was biting. All drinks and lunch were provided with 3 salads, chicken, steak, fish (one of the best I have ever had) and of course tropical fruits. Boyd knocked down 2 cocoanuts. We got one of the men to shuck it, poke a hole and gave us 2 straws. Boyd did not like it as much, it needed it cooler. We took it to our hotel and with leatherman got it apart and feasted on a truly great delicacy, ok it is just a coconut, but one Boyd got down and we opened it, so it was special.

Did I mention the cyclone? A week or so ago a deadly cyclone hit Fiji killing 10. The weather pattern was the same and a tropical depression was on the same track as we were heading out to sea. The sea was rough and with white caps it was a thrilling ride. Fortunately, it veered a different direction, but the clouds were heavy and windy but it could not dampen the excitement and our adventure was fantastic.
Getting back to our tropical hotel, we feel asleep easily.

Hope this finds you well we are on the Fantastic Journey and having a great time. Hope you got part 1, email is a bit tough, but we are getting better!

Bret Karen Boyd and soon Garret's New Zealand Trip Part 2
Up and out again Fiji day 2, we hired a taxi to drop us at the McDonald's, not to eat but to be picked up to go to a Jet Boat ride! Exciting and spinning up a river. The boat would swerve and then go directly at an immovable object to spin around it! It is interesting
that they pay people to sit in a tower all day and radio if any other river traffic. There were two young Japanese girls who had to be blond under the dark hair. The driver stopped every once in a while as a tour guide. One time we went out to sea and he pointed out a
small island in the distance, and told the girls it was Japan, they were excited and looked closely, it finally dawned on them!

We had the driver drop us in Nadi City and wondered the shops, buying a great Pizza and some stuff for home. A taxi back to the Hotel. The dinner cruise on Captain Cook was very nice, the food was great and the show interesting. Boyd enjoyed the hot Tea so much they gave him a few to take home.

The car left the hotel at 0400 for the airport and our next leg to Auckland.

We were in Auckland airport for a couple of hours then Qantas to Christchurch where were finally meet by our car pick-up driving into the city and picked up our car then the hotel. We went to dinner and got to bed. Garret arrived around midnight. Garret caught us up in
the morning and we got a cell phone card, hit the market and headed out to Omarama. Lunch in Geraldine and an incredible drive (on the wrong side of the road) finally arriving in Dalrachney which is the Station owned by Rick, Terre, Hannah and Edward Aubrey (Terre is Bret's big sister, although she is only 45, and is shorter!).
Sitting on some 23,000 acres of mountains and green valleys with plenty of Sheep, cattle and horses. Terre fixed up a 3 bedroom-mustering house with food towels and everything we could need! It even had a painted sign with "The Willat House" out front! We stopped in at the Gliderport on the drive in, set-up for Garret to fly next week.

and then came # 3

This is the last of the NZ trip emails. We tried to send it while in transit, but we could not find a suitable internet cafe!

Dalrachney Station (Name of Terre and Rick's fantastic sheep Farm): We got to see the dogs in action. Rick is a nationally ranked dog handler. We think that he secretly installed radio controls into the dogs as he moved, stopped and bid them to move the sheep to where he wanted, the amazing thing is the distance. We learned a way to have the testicles and tails removed from sheep, Boyd wanted no part. We drove in his 4x4 Ford to a back part of the Station and visited with a worker installing a new fence and pen system. We drove on the main road which boarders their property for some 7 miles to a gate and then 5 back in! The mountains are spectacular! And the vivid blue sky inviting.

On Saturday we all drove in three cars (Rick and Edward had some work to do and joined us later) to their summer cabin in Wanaka. We fell in love with Wanaka and could easily live there in peace, actually they need a glider operation there! The summerhouse has 3 bedrooms a basement/garage and overlooks the lake. Boyd found the plum tree to be a great source of sweet fruit.

Rick had to return to work on Saturday, but we first checked out the flight museum at the famous Wanaka Airport home to an annual airshow of warbirds. The museum is very interesting. Across the street is a place called Take a Shot! It has a 22 cal rifle range indoor, golf range, skeet shoot, archery ranges and a combat zone with soft compressed balls. This was entertainment for all and a great ides as they worked well together. Wanaka is a miniature Lake Tahoe, the lake is the 5^th largest in NZ, it is 311meters deep.

Queenstown Monday: Queenstown is an hour from Wanaka and is a major tourist area. They have it all, but we only got to see under the lake and see huge fish and ells. Then a ride on the Shotover jetboats trying to see how close they could come to exchanging paint on the rock walls of this fast moving river, defiantly E ticket. But from there Hannah and Boyd jumped off a bridge over a swift river, oh yes they did have a bungee tied to their feet. The rest of us chickens came up with varying excuses, but the real fearless showed us how! Back to Omarama to relive the experience many times!

Some of the sheep missed their chance to have their wool removed in November. So we got to see real sheep shearing. Followed by a flight in Rick’s Cessna 185 we flew to Omarama for fuel then Garret and Bret toured the Alps up to Mount Cook and then to the western coast down to Mount Aspiring which is a place that many people climb as it is called little Matterhorn for a good reason! Then back to Dalrachney. Karen and Boyd then had a great flight out to Wanaka and Mount Aspiring.

Garret had his chance to fly a sailplane so he was off for a couple of hour flight. He was ok’d to solo. But he missed a deep sea fishing trip. Rick had his boat in tow and we meet his brother Ben and we were off to the East Coast. Into the ocean we went in small boats. Now a Kiwi might say the seas were a bit rough, but the waves were higher then the boat and un-relentless! We were tossed until we wanted to toss our cookies. Everyone felt a bit under the weather. We caught and threw back a bunch of Jack Stewart fish, Hannah caught 2 small sharks and threw them back, but finally we caught a few cods. We went back in ad arrived shaken but not stirred. We tried out KFC chicken. We were bushed when we got home.

Our next unique sight was a crop duster putting fertilizer and then some clover seeds on a few paddocks. This aircraft is a Crisco, low wing nose wheel with a turbo prop. It was amazing to watch. Afterwards we returned to Wanaka and the World Famous Puzzling World. We wondered thru the maze and got our inner ear confused in a slanted room.

We again drove to Queenstown, checking out Fly By Wire (that was Boyd in one of these in the last email picture). The rules forbid anyone under 15, but they let Boyd give it a go. Hanging by a wire, you lay down in a sled with an engine and prop which has a ducted rudder. You are towed up and you release giving power and fly around for about 7 minutes. www.flybywire.co.nz we reached speeds of 140kph. Then to the important matter of shopping in Arrowtown and back to Wanaka.

The next day we went back to Queenstown (it’s only an hour drive) to take the tram up to the top of the mountain, what a spectacular view. They also had street lugeing. Not the Olympic kind but it was great fun. We did it 5 times each, the boys bought tickets for 5 extra times. On these luges you sit up and have brakes thank goodness. We went down the hill for lunch and then took Boyd back to the bungee bridge for another jump, this time they dunked him about chest deep. He came up yelling its coooold. The next day on our way back to Omarama we stopped at the transport and toy museum. They had cars, planes, tanks, fire trucks and all sorts of toys. It is all a private collection, just some older guy who collects and restores stuff. We could have spend all day there.

The next day Garret was off to the Gliderport for a flight. After the 10 am briefing they thought it would be a 1000k day, but alas the lift did not quite pan out it was only a 500k day. He flew a Ventus C with water. He flew to Mt Cook and then down south with a couple of other guys, he was up for 5:40 hours. The next day he flew the same glider for 3 hours while we went to the lake for a couple hours of relaxation. Hannah went water skiing, the only one brave enough to get in the cool water. Boyd didn’t even want to get the tops of his feet wet after he got the bottoms wet. Karen would have gone skiing if the water or air had been just a wee bit warmer. She was afraid she would never warm up if she got in. On the way home Karen stopped off at the Gliderport and Garret took her for a flight in an Astir for about an hour. Lack of socks (ie really cold toes) limited the flight even though the lift was still pretty good at 8pm (the sun sets at 9:15 or so). Garret dropped a fair chuck of change at the Gliderport, money well spent he says for the fun and experience he got.

Today we are starting our journey home. We have reservations to fly up to Mt Cook and land on the glacier. Hopefully the weather will cooperate (it did not, stayed over cast). Then we will be off to Christchurch for a little sight seeing and the motel for the night. Our flight leaves at 8:30 am to Fiji for a 9 hour layover, then on to LAX arriving mid-day on the same day we left. We will be gaining back the day we lost coming here. Although we don’t want to leave here we are ready to be back home. Bret and Karen are not looking forward to the mail pile that awaits them. Boyd can hardly contain his enthusiasm to share. Garret is not sure which side of the road to use, fortunately Renee will pick us up and get us on the road!

Since we did not get this out on time: We meet Hannah, Edward and Terre for dinner in Christchurch and some more shopping! We burned a bunch of our Bartercard on great memories this trip. We departed early from Christchurch to Auckland for a couple hour layover then Fiji. Garret had been given tickets for a later flight, but as it turned out it had been cancelled in November! So we did not meet up with him as planned in Fiji.

Karen Bret and Boyd did have a good time in Fiji seeing the orchid Garden below the mounting of the Sleeping Giant! Then a quick swim and a great dinner on the beach. Since Garret missed out, we went to the airport a little early only to find our 11 pm flight delayed to 0200. They sent us on a bus to a Hotel and free dinner (darn we just eat!). it was a long wait, then an almost 10 hour flight home. The good part is that it was a lighter load and we being the sneaky travelers spread out. Bret and Boyd each had a 4 seat section and Karen and Garret had 2 2seat sections in which we stretched out and slept most of the flight, Boyd won!

We made it back to find our mail full (however Jenny and the crew trashed most of the junk!) Fortunately Renee picked us up, but I did find it easier to get use to the Right side a lot quicker then the left side. Actually I got very comfortable on the left side driving and only a few times toward the end made the windshield wipers come on for a left turn (the turn signal arm is on the right side!) I did however almost change the gears when attempting to put on the left turn signal on at the airport!

Once we get caught up I will post some pictures on our web site. Check in a week or so by clicking on Family at the bottom of the first page.

As you can see we had a great time. It has been a couple of weeks and we are almost caught up!

To see Fiji Pictures click here. To see New Zealand adventure pictures click here. To see the rest of the best of New Zealand pictures, click here!